Challenge of the GoBots
| network = First-run syndication | first_aired = 29 October 1984 (miniseries) 16 September 1985 (regular series) | last_aired = | num_episodes = 65 | website = }} Challenge of the GoBots (also known as simply Gobots) is an American animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, based on the GoBots toy line released by Tonka. Most of the toys were imported from the Japanese Machine Robo toy line. The GoBots originally debuted in animated form as a five-part miniseries, which aired in syndication from 29 October to 2 November 1984. A regular series followed the next year, premiering 16 September 1985. The series was later rerun on the USA Cartoon Express. Summary GoBots dealt with two opposing forces of transforming robots from the planet Gobotron: the heroic Guardians and the evil Renegades. The Guardians were led by Leader-1; others included Turbo and Scooter. The Renegades were led by Cy-Kill, with Crasher and Cop-Tur among their ranks. The characters rarely had guns, instead shooting energy blasts out of their fists. Unlike Transformers, GoBots had regular female characters. However, the females were built like the males (only Crasher received any distinguishable feminine features). The GoBots' origin as organic beings accounted for the presence of genders among the robots. The series generally focused on the "lead" three robots from each faction (Leader-1, Turbo and Scooter vs. Cy-Kill, Cop-Tur and Crasher), who were virtually ever-present. Other characters seemed to rotate in "guest-star" roles. GoBots had no clear divide between the two factions. The characters (as well as the toys) had no identifying insignias or markings to indicate their allegiance, although it was clearly indicated on the packaging. Likewise, there was no commonality of design within each faction. The only "theme" to a side was that anything that turned into a "monstrous"-looking robot or vehicle was a Renegade. Clips from the show were used in Errol Morris' Fast, Cheap and Out of Control. Summary Thousands of years ago on the planet GoBotron, there lived a race of human-like beings known as Gobots. Civil war erupted on the planet when the power-hungry terrorist group known as the Renegades arose, led by a madman dubbed the "Master Renegade", who waged war against the peaceful Guardians. When a Renegade sabotage operation inadvertently resulted in a gigantic asteroid colliding with GoBotron, the natural disasters that resulted from the asteroid's impact pushed the GoBings to the verge of extinction. However, the genius who became known as the "Last Engineer" saved his people, taking his experiments to replace parts of his own body with mechanical substitutes to the ultimate extent and transferring the GoBings brains into large robot bodies known as "GoBots". The GoBot forms possessed an additional ability; after being run through the device named the Modifier, the GoBots' bodies were able to transform into other vehicles. His work done, the Last Engineer intended to retreat to a pre-prepared workshop elsewhere in the galaxy, but the Master Renegade stole his ship and escaped in his stead. The Last Engineer placed himself into suspended animation beneath the surface of GoBotron, while above, the war continued to rage between the Guardians and the Renegades, now all encased in GoBot shells. In the last quarter of the 20th Century, the planet Earth became involved in the conflict between Leader-1's Guardians and Cy-Kill's Renegades. During one of these battles, one of Leader-1's lieutenants, Turbo, became severely damaged. Unwilling to let his friend and teammate die, Leader-1 began his quest to find the legendary Last Engineer. Leader-1 found the person he believed to be the Last Engineer, but Leader-1 had unwittingly released the Master Renegade (though he did repair Turbo to gain the Guardians' trust). The Guardians later found the true Last Engineer, who was instrumental in frustrating the alliance between Cy-Kill's Renegades and the Master Renegade. The Master Renegade later escaped the custody of the Renegades, and plagued both factions, notably attacking the UniCom colony of New Earth. Characters Guardians * Leader-1 * Turbo * Scooter * Small Foot * Van Guard * Blaster * Rest-Q * Path Finder * Sparky * Heat Seeker * Road Ranger * Night Ranger * Hans-Cuff * Bolt * Ace * Mr. Moto * Dive-Dive * Flip Top * Zeemon * Treds * Dozer Renegades * Cy-Kill * Crasher * Cop-Tur * Loco * Fitor * Tank * Screw Head * Destroyer * Tux (Stretch) * Fly Trap * Vamp * Scorp * Pincher * Bugsy * Hornet * Creepy * Dr. Go * Scales * Zod * Stallion * Stinger * Buggyman * Geeper-Creeper * Snoop * Slicks * Zero * Bug Bite Humans * Matt Hunter * Nick Burns * Allison Janmoria "A.J." Foster * Anya * General Newcastle * The Last Engineer * Master Renegade * Dr. Zebadiah (Thadius) Braxis Episodes # Battle For Gobotron # Target Earth # Conquest Of Earth # Earth Bound # The Final Conflict # Time Wars # It's The Thought That Counts # Trident's Triple Threat # Renegade Alliance # Cy-Kill's Cataclysmic Trap # Speed Is Of The Essence # Genius And Son # Dawn World # Nova Beam # Forced Alliance # Invasion From The 21st Level (Part 1) # Invasion From The 21st Level (Part 2) # Lost On Gobotron # Cy-Kill's Shrinking Ray # Doppelganger # The Quest For The Roguestar # Renegade Rampage (Part 1) # Renegade Rampage (Part 2) # Ultra Zod # Sentinel # Cold Spell # Crime Wave # Auto Madic # Scooter Enhanced # Tarnished Image # In Search of Ancient Gobonauts # Gameworld # Wolf In The Fold # Depth Charge # Transfer Point # Steamer's Defection # The GoBot Who Cried Renegade # The Seer # Whiz Kid # Ring Of Fire # Pacific Overtures # Cy-Kill's Escape (Part 1 of 5) # Quest For The Creator (Part 2 of 5) # The Fall Of Gobotron (Part 3 of 5) # Flight To Earth (Part 4 of 5) # Return To Gobotron (Part 5 of 5) # Destroy All Guardians # Escape From Elba # Fitor To The Finish # Clutch Of Doom # The Third Column # A New Suit For Leader-1 # Renegade Carnival # The Gift # Terror In Atlantis # The Last Magic Man # Braxis Gone Bonkers # Inside Job # Element Of Danger # Mission Gobotron # Et Tu, Cy-Kill? # The GoBots That Time Forgot # The Secret Of Halley's Comet # Guardian Academy # Quest For New Earth Comparisons to Transformers The franchises of GoBots and Hasbro's Transformers have often been compared due to the obvious similarities between the products. Although GoBots were technically first to reach the market, Transformers became the clear leader in both the marketplace and in popular culture. Examples of the similarities between the brands' backstory include: *Both are opposing forces of robots engaged in civil war which transform between robot and vehicle-based forms which represent good and evil respectively. *GoBots hail from Gobotron where Transformers hail from Cybertron *Both franchises introduced female robot characters. However, GoBots featured these characters in the premiere and maintained the character(s) as regular players. Transformers did not introduce female robots until the second season and used them only sparingly before the movie. *Both TV series featured veteran voice-actors Frank Welker and Peter Cullen,the leaders of the Decepticons and Autobots respectively. *While most likely coincidental, the Last Engineer is similar in concept to the Transformer 'god', Primus, whose consciousness also dwelled deep within their homeworld. DVD Release Warner Archive has released the entire Challenge of the GoBots TV series on DVD. There are no DVD plans for the movie, GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords. Cast * Lou Richards - Leader-1 * Arthur Burghardt - Turbo * Frank Welker - Scooter, Blaster, Rest-Q, Slicks, Screw Head, Throttle, Wrong-Way, Zeemon * Bernard Erhard - Cy-Kill * Marilyn Lightstone - Crasher, Path Finder * Bob Holt - Cop-Tur, Tork * Morgan Paull - Matt Hunter * Sparky Marcus - Nick Burns * Leslie Speights - A.J. Foster * René Auberjonois - Dr. Zebediah Braxis * Candy Ann Brown - A.J. Foster (eps 1-5) * Ken Hudson Campbell - Van Guard * Philip Lewis Clarke - Dr. Go * Peter Cullen - Blockhead, Pincher, Scratch, Spoiler, Stallion, Stinger, Tank * Richard Gautier - Sky Jack * Phil Hartman - Professor Von Joy, Dozer, Hans-Cuff, Staks * Darryl Hickman - Hornet * Gail Matthius - Dr. Anya Turganova * Tress MacNeille - Spay-C * Brock Peters - General Newcastle * Peter Renaday - Master Renegade, Psycho, Water Walk * Robert Ridgely - Flytrap, Buggyman * B. J. Ward - Small Foot * Kelly Ward - Fitor * Kirby Ward - Heat Seeker Additional Voices Adrienne Alexander, Jack Angel, Lewis Arquette, Bever-Leigh Banfield, Jered Barclay, Eddie Barth, Billy Barty, Steve Bulen, Howard Caine, Bill Callaway, Selette Cole, Henry Corden, Regis Cordic, Jennifer Darling, Jerry Dexter, George DiCenzo, Richard Dysart, Paul Frees, Dan Gilvezan, Jonathan Harris, Erv Immeman, David Jolliffe, Zale Kessler, Peter Leeds, Norma MacMillan, Sparky Marcus, Ken Mars, Bill Martin, Walter Matthews, Amanda McBroom, Joe Medalis, Allan Melvin, Scott Menville, Sidney Miller, Noelle North, Soon-Teck Oh, Alan Oppenheimer, Laurel Page, Rob Paulsen, Josh Rodine, Shavar Ross, Marilyn Schreffler, Michael Sheehan, Andre Stojka, Steve Susskind, Mark Taylor, Brian Tochi, Les Tremayne, Manu Tupou, Jimmy Weldon, Eric Williams, Keone Young, Ted Zeigler Production Credits * Executive Producers: Joseph Barbera and William Hanna * Co-Executive Producer: Joe Taritero * Producer: Kay Wright * Associate Producer: Lew Saw * Creative Supervisor and Story Editor: Jeff Segal * Associate Story Editor: Kelly Ward * Supervising Director: Ray Patterson * Directors: Art Davis, Oscar Dufau, Volus Jones, Don Lusk, Rudy Zamora, Alan Zaslove * Assistant Directors: Robert Goe, Bill Hutton, Rick Leon, Tony Love, Don Patterson, Tim Walker * For the Tonka Corporation ** Executive Producer: Patrick S. Feely ** Producer: Lois Hanrahan ** Co-Producer: Ray McDonald * Story Direction: Robert Taylor, Kent Butterworth, Roy Wilson, Rhoydon Shishido, Michael Swainigan, Peter Von Sholly, Rich Chidlaw, Larry Latham, Marijah Dial, Dale Barnhart, Tom Sito, George Scribner, Bill Kroyer * Recording Director: Gordon Hunt * Assistant Casting Director: Andrea Romano * Title: Bill Perez * Graphics: Iraj Peran, Tom Wogatzke * Music Arranged and Conducted By: Hoyt Curtin * Music Supervisor: Paul DeKorte * Design Supervisor: Davis Doi * Character Design: Michael McHugh & Tony Sgroi * Background Color Key: Eric Heschrong * Background Supervisor: Al Gmuer * Background Artists: Eric Heschrong, Mike Humphries, James Hegdus * Produced and Associated with Cuckoos Nest Wang Film Productions Co., LTD * Production Supervisor: Lynn Hoag * Technical Advisor: Bob Marples * Animation Supervisors: Richard Bowman, Gary Hurst, William Kitchen, Mark Simon * Sound Directors: Alvy Dorman, Phil Flad * Supervising Film Editor: Larry C. Cowman * Dubbing Supervisor: Pat Foley * Supervising Music Editor: Joe Sandusky * Supervising Effects Editors: Michael Bradley, Kerry Williams * Music and Effects: Vitello and Associates * Show Editor: Gil Iverson * Negative Consultant: William E. DeBoer * Post-Production Supervisor: Joed Eaton * Executives in Charge of Production: Jayne Barbera and Jean MacCurdy * A Hanna-Barbera Production * ©1984 Hanna Barbera Productions Warner Bros Inc & Tonka Corporation See Also * GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords (1986) References External Links *New Gobotron discussion board *[http://counter-x.net/gobots/tv/images/index.html Challenge of the Gobots Screenshots at Counter-X.net] *[http://tgr59ca.tripod.com/index.html Challenge of the GoBots fan page] *Overlord CyKill's Renegade Headquarters Category:Hanna-Barbera shows Category:Syndicated shows Category:The Funtastic Index